by Alyssa Day
“I can never deserve you,” she whispered, taking his hands and pulling him to his feet.
“Wearing those red silk undergarments would go a long way toward changing that,” he said, flashing his most wickedly seductive grin.
“Alaric,” she said, flushing a hot red all over again.
But the laughter that surrounded them floated on waves of emotion that were warm, encouraging, and kind. She turned to see that the people in the room were in fact only the Warriors of Poseidon and their mates, and every single one of them felt like family.
Family.
“I believe I have waited more than long enough for your response,” Alaric said, his face beginning to show the strain of doubt.
“You knew my answer before you ever asked, my warrior priest,” she said, throwing her arms around his neck. “Yes, and yes, and yes. Forever and ever.”
She kissed him, and only the repeated sound of royal throat clearing brought her out of it.
When Alaric put an arm around her and nudged her to turn toward Conlan, she realized that everyone in the room was paired up and also facing their new king and queen.
Conlan turned to each couple in turn, and before continuing, he waited for each to respond with their assent to the question, “Do you each take the other as beloved mate, husband and wife, for now and until the waters of the ocean run dry?”
He stood before them. “Alaric and Quinn.”
Even as Quinn said a fervent yes, Alaric took her hand and placed a silver ring, set with a beautiful sapphire, on her finger.
“Yes,” he said, looking into her eyes with his beautiful emerald gaze. “For always and eternity.”
Conlan and Riley smiled at them, and Riley sniffled a little, before they turned to the next couple. Quinn listened to the words, almost in a daze, as she stared at Alaric.
“Ven and Erin.”
“Justice and Keely.”
“Bastien and Kat.”
“Alexios and Grace.”
“Marie and Ethan.”
“Brennan and Tiernan.”
“Christophe and Fiona.”
“Serai and Daniel.”
When each of them had responded with a heartfelt assent, Conlan flung open and held wide his arms. “Then, without further ado, and by the authority vested in me as king of Atlantis, I now pronounce you husbands and wives,” he said, smiling. “And long may you live and love, standing by our side and ushering the next generation of Atlanteans into the world.”
A little cheering, a lot of kissing, and many tears and hugs later, Quinn and Alaric had congratulated and been congratulated by everyone in the room. Riley had hugged her tightly for a long time, saying over and over again how happy she was, and happily planning family dinners, but then Alaric and Ven walked to the door next to the one through which Conlan and Riley had arrived, and Ven shouted for quiet.
“We have a little surprise, boys and girls,” Ven said, grinning like a fool.
He and Alaric flung open the door and led the group into a courtyard garden that had been transformed into a private wedding reception just for the newly wedded couples and a few close friends.
“Hit it, Marcus,” Ven called out, and Quinn was surprised to see the very relaxed head of the palace guard leaning down to an enormous array of musical equipment.
The silken tone of Elvis Presley’s voice soared over the room, and Quinn didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when the familiar lyrics began. “You got Elvis, after all.”
“I couldn’t help falling in love with you, either,” Alaric told her solemnly. “I tried to fight it; I never believed I could deserve you. But love had different plans for me than a lifetime of solitude and loneliness.”
A blast of salt-drenched sea air blew Quinn from Alaric’s arms, and it was their only warning before Poseidon appeared in the center of the room, next to the enormous seven-tiered cake.
AND YET YOU DID NOT ASK ME ABOUT MY PLANS FOR YOUR LIFETIME, ALTHOUGH YOU ARE HIGH PRIEST OF MY TEMPLE.
When Poseidon’s voice roared through the room, the speakers exploded in pops of electrical sparks and smoke.
“I resign,” Alaric said, crossing to Quinn and taking her hand. “Find someone else to do the job.”
Poseidon, who’d decided to appear in the guise of a ten-foot-tall Atlantean warrior, sneered at Alaric but then appeared to be distracted by the cake. He lifted the entire top tier and put it in his mouth, and a blissful smile spread across his face.
I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS HUMAN FASCINATION WITH CAKE, BUT I APPROVE.
“You can’t—” Quinn began, but he pointed one giant finger at her, and she found she couldn’t speak.
DO NOT TELL ME WHAT I CANNOT DO, HUMAN. YOU HAVE ALREADY RUINED THE MOST POWERFUL HIGH PRIEST IN ATLANTEAN HISTORY WITH YOUR SEDUCTIVE WAYS.
Quinn didn’t know whether to be appalled or amused at “seductive ways.”
Alaric stepped between them, powering up his magic until he shone as bright as the noon sun. He waved a hand at Quinn, and Poseidon’s hold on her broke.
“She ruined nothing,” Alaric told Poseidon, his voice icy calm. “My power increased a thousandfold during the soul-meld.”
WILL YOU DEFY ME FOR HER?
Poseidon roared, and suddenly the Trident flew through the air and into his grasp. He pointed it at Alaric, and Quinn ran to put her body in front of her new husband’s.
“No,” she shouted. “No. Don’t even think about hurting him. He has been yours for hundreds of years. It’s my turn now.”
Alaric tried to push her behind him again, but she planted her feet and wouldn’t move. Poseidon glared at her, and everyone in the garden seemed to take a deep breath at once, undoubtedly waiting for him to blast her to pieces for her insolence.
Instead, the sea god started laughing. Quinn and Alaric stared at each other as Poseidon laughed, long and hard, louder and louder, until finally he slapped one hand on his enormous thigh and subsided.
I THINK THIS ONE WILL MAKE STRONG BABIES, ALARIC. IT’S ABOUT TIME YOU FOUND YOUR BALLS AND STOOD UP TO ME. YOU HAVE MY BLESSING. WHERE IS THE ALE?
With that, Poseidon turned to the fountain, pointed the Trident at it, and turned the bubbling water into ale. He snatched a punch bowl off the nearest table, dumped its contents on the grass, and scooped himself up a couple of gallons of ale, which he proceeded to down in one thirsty gulp.
KING CONLAN. YOU WILL TELL ME YOUR PLANS FOR MY ATLANTIS NOW THAT THE THREAT OF WAR BETWEEN THE GODS HAS PASSED.
As Conlan and Riley walked over to the sea god, Quinn finally let out the breath she’d been holding.
“Do you think we’re going to be okay?”
Alaric nodded, a smile playing at the edges of his lips. “I think we’re going to be better than okay. We’re going to be terrific.”
An hour or so later, after Poseidon had vanished, and they’d said their good-byes to Riley and Conlan and everyone else—with many promises to return soon—and Alaric had invested Myrken with the title of interim high priest of Poseidon, which had left the man nearly reeling with shock, they made their way to a quiet corner of the garden and Alaric called to the portal.
“Where do you want to go first?” he asked her, pulling her into his arms and kissing her forehead, nose, and cheeks, before capturing her lips.
The portal chose that moment to appear, and a familiar voice sounded from its center. “Dude, let’s hit it.”
“Do not ever call me dude,” Alaric growled.
“Rio, I think,” Quinn said, laughing and pulling Alaric’s head down for another long, leisurely kiss. “I want to see if Alaric knows how to dance to something spicy.”
As they entered the portal and spun through the vortex toward their future, Alaric could have sworn he heard the portal laughing. He chos
e to ignore it.
“I am very good at naked dancing, as I have proven many times,” he murmured in her ear.
She blushed as he continued describing all the things he claimed to be very good at doing naked. Her arrogant, amazing Atlantean warrior priest.
“I will love you for the rest of my life,” she said fiercely, interrupting his naughty recitation.
As they stepped out of the portal into the hot, fragrant air of late afternoon in Rio, he flashed her one of those purely male smiles that melted her bones and made her body heat up in all the most delicious places. “And I will love you for all of eternity, mi amara, my heart.”
“That’s totally awesome, dudes,” the portal called out to them before it vanished.
Alaric narrowed his eyes. “We have got to find another way to travel,” he grumbled.
She started laughing and took his hand, and they walked forward into their future.
Together. Forever.
And she wouldn’t have it any other way.
Epilogue
Château des Loups, in the Swiss Alps, six months later
Quinn sipped the fine cognac and sighed with pleasure. “This is the best trip we’ve taken yet.”
“You said that about Paris,” Alaric said, smiling at her over his ale. He was sure she became more beautiful every day, especially now that she actually ate on a regular basis. “Also Rio, Alaska, Fiji, London, China—am I forgetting any?”
“They were all the best trips ever,” she said happily. “Nobody needs me to tell them what to do, or figure out how to feed fifty new recruits with a budget that doesn’t stretch past macaroni and cheese, or shoot any vampires, or rescue any skunk shifters—”
“Really?” He grimaced. “Skunk shifters?”
“In the Smoky Mountains,” she said. “You wouldn’t believe—”
“I don’t want to know,” he said firmly. “Some stories are better left untold.”
She grinned. “I didn’t know you were squeamish, tough guy.”
“I simply have discriminating taste,” he said haughtily.
“And skunks don’t taste good.”
They both laughed.
She bit her lip, always a sign of nerves with her. “So you don’t ever get, I don’t know, maybe a little bored?”
He wondered how to avoid any hidden reefs in this conversation. “Well,” he said cautiously, “there are times when I wonder if I could be of use for more than vacation and leisure.”
Her eyes lit up. “Exactly! Not that we want to go back to the way things were, but maybe we could do something to help someone once in a while. You know, not officially but on a kind of pro bono basis.”
He grinned at her and leaned back in his chair. “Yes. I think I’d like that. Only if you would, of course. I’m perfectly content to spend all day every day licking that place on your—”
“Alaric!” Her cheeks turned scarlet, as they always did when he teased her, and he marveled anew that his wanton wife was so shy in so many ways.
A commotion at the front of the lodge caught their attention, and a man and woman clutching each other ran in, shouting and crying.
“Our son, please, somebody help us, they took our son,” the man shouted.
His wife, for clearly they were a couple, just sobbed, unable even to speak.
“We were on the trail behind the lodge, and they came out of nowhere, like giant hairy ghosts,” the man said, his eyes wild. “We’ve never seen such monsters! You must believe me, we would never make this up. They were gray, with red eyes, and at least eight feet tall—”
The old man nursing a whiskey at the bar interrupted him. “We’ve got a feral pack of shape-shifting yetis around here. They like to take kids, young and juicy. Let ’em sit around for a couple of days before they kill ’em, so you still have a chance if you go now.”
The woman’s eyes rolled back in her head and she dropped like a stone—fainted dead away. Her husband caught her on the way down, but then he burst into tears. “Who will help me?”
Quinn put her hand on Alaric’s. “Oh, honey, isn’t it a lovely day for a hike?”
“It’s freezing outside.”
She stroked her lips with one finger and then lightly licked her lips and finger, both, while she watched her husband’s eyes glaze over.
“Brisk, is what I meant to say,” he amended. “Great day for a brisk walk.”
Quinn stood up and walked over to the couple sitting on the floor. “Don’t worry. We’ll find him for you.”
“Yetis,” Alaric said, coming up behind her with her coat. “It had to be yetis.”
“Better than skunks,” she reminded him. “Our life together will never be boring.”
“Thank the gods for that,” he murmured, before he helped her into her coat and walked out onto the frozen mountainside to hunt for shape-shifting yetis.
In the very back of the bar, a large man with eyes that constantly shifted from blue to green to blue again watched them go.
AND HE CALLED ME A DERANGED FOOL, Poseidon thought, smiling fondly. I’LL HAVE HIM BACK YET. ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY FIND OUT THEIR FIRST DAUGHTER IS ON THE WAY. THEY SHOULD NAME HER AFTER ME.
POSEIDONA, I THINK.
Still smiling, the sea god dropped a gold coin on the table and vanished. He had the next generation of Atlanteans to worry about now. That Prince Aidan was going to be a handful . . .
* * *
Keep reading for a special preview of Alyssa Day’s new paranormal romance series
THE CURSED
Coming in May 2013, from Berkley Sensation!
* * *
On top of the Ramble Stone Arch, Central Park, New York, three A.M.
Getting stabbed is hell on the dry-cleaning bill.
Luke Oliver looked down at the silver blade stuck between his ribs and then up at the only person still alive who’d known him back when his name was Lucian Olivieri. “I’d kill anyone else for that, Maestro.”
He pulled out the knife, wincing as it scraped a rib, wiped it on his jeans, and then put it in his pocket. “You didn’t want it back, did you?”
The other man, his face hidden by the shadows cast by his fedora, laughed. His laugh sounded like rock being crushed beneath a giant’s boots and was just as appealing. Luke suspected the maestro knew it, too, and used it as one of a lifetime’s worth of weapons.
“Consider it a gift. And I was just checking,” the maestro said. “When silver starts burning you like acid—”
“I know the terms of my own curse,” Luke said, cutting off the reminder. Beating back the past. “What do you want? I have a job to get back to.”
“Still doing those jobs? Trying to save the world from your hideaways in the dank, dingy corners of Bordertown?”
It was Luke’s turn to laugh. “No hideaway. A crappy office. And I’m only trying to save one person. The world can go to hell for all I care, but right now I’m too busy to reminisce about old times.”
“We didn’t have any old times. We were on opposite sides. Your mother was a thug.”
“Even enemies have old times. And my mother was an aristocratic thug. Never let it be said that Lucrezia Borgia didn’t do her murdering with class,” Luke countered, as he silently watched a trio of gang bangers, smelling of cheap booze and acrid smoke, saunter underneath the arch while trading raucous and profane insults. Secure in their mistaken belief that they were apex predators in the darkest hours of the night. He wondered briefly what they’d do if he dropped down among them and showed them the face and power of a true predator.
Wet their pants and run screaming for Mommy, no doubt.
“Do you still do it? Hunt the criminals?” The maestro’s voice held only a calm curiosity, as if he were asking about the weather. “Do you feel the pu
ll to stalk them as prey and crush them? Burn them to cinders?”
Yes.
Always.
No.
Never.
Never again, at least.
Luke settled on a nonanswer. “You have one minute to say something relevant.”
The other man pulled an envelope out of his coat pocket and held it out to Luke, and then he said the two words Luke had never wanted to hear again.
“Black Swan.”
Shock knocked Luke back like a crossbow aimed at his heart, and he fell off the arch, but recovered in time to land with his characteristic grace on the path thirteen feet below.
The maestro laughed once more and tossed the envelope down through the night air before he disappeared. Luke caught the envelope as it fell, almost in spite of himself. The glossy black-and-red logo was embossed on one corner, as he’d expected; the sinuous arch of the swan’s neck stark against the Templar cross and mocking him with its elegance.
He needed to get back to his office. His client’s missing child was far more important than anything that could be inside this envelope. He’d burn it. Destroy any evidence that the League had ever reached out its slimy tentacles, and move on with what was passing for his life these days. He told himself all that, even as he tore open the envelope right there on the path, and pulled out its entire contents: a single photograph.
The moonlight seemed to caress the woman in the photo, highlighting with vivid, shocking clarity her perfect bone structure, the curve of her cheek, and her wary expression. The world tilted on its axis, and the edges of Luke’s fingers shimmered with blue flame, nearly incinerating the photo before he extinguished the fire. He stared at the picture—still perfect but for charred edges—and another kind of fire flashed to an inferno inside him. It was Rio. Rio Jones, the one woman he’d ever truly wanted.
The one woman he could never have.
The League of the Black Swan was back and it wanted him to get involved with Rio Jones. It was the end of the world, all over again. An immortal just couldn’t catch a break.